Previews

Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

Vicarious Visions takes everything that was cool about Sk8land and puts a new twist on it.

Spiffy:

Feels like Sk8land with a new twist; even bigger stages than before; new customization will make fans happy.

Iffy:

Using the Bert Slide to drift might not wow gamers; still don't fully know what they're planning for online multiplayer.

It goes without saying that Vicarious Visions was on to something when they released Tony Hawk's American Sk8land last November. As one of the first games to utilize Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, it was a stellar title that managed to beautifully show off what the DS hardware was capable of doing in the right hands. In fact, to this day, there hasn't been an American or European developer who has managed to produce a DS title with the level of impact that Sk8land had. So, what's there to do for the next title after setting such a high bar? Set it higher with something new.

Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam picks up exactly where the goofy Saturday-morning-cartoon action of Sk8land left off. After raiding California to raise funds to resurrect an old skate park, the player has impressed Tony Hawk so much that they hop on a jet and travel around the world to different locales to compete in downhill skating competitions in new cities. The new levels include San Francisco, Edinburgh, Rio de Janeiro, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Hong Kong, and Hoover Dam. Each level will have nine subchallenges to it that can be picked at the player's leisure.

Plotline aside, it's really about what Vicarious has been doing since wrapping that last game. Since then, the team has managed to figure out how to remap texture streaming and geometry on the DS hardware to enable three times the level size of the previous game. Who said math class didn't pay off? Certainly not a game developer. The animation looks just as good as the first game, and as Leo Zuniga of Vicarious pointed out, the team has also been hard at work optimizing Downhill Jam to run at a blistering 60 frames per second while facing off against three other CPU opponents.

Downhill Jam will boast four single-player modes. There's the ubiquitous Story mode, which sends the jet-setting protagonist around the globe to compete. There's Jam Session, which feels a bit more like the Classic mode from traditional Hawk games. There's Quick Race, which thrusts players straight into the downhill action, and there's Free Skate, which every gamer who's ever played a Tony Hawk game should find familiar. Within the modes, players can participate in medal challenges, the likes of which unlock more of the terrain in each level. It seems that the levels in their truncated form are fairly reminiscent of Sk8land's decent-sized levels, but with the medals earned, players will see more and more of each city's landmarks.

And then there's the gameplay itself. Even though we only tried out the San Francisco and Edinburgh maps, we got an experience that felt completely different than any other Tony Hawk game we'd ever played, for both good and sometimes awkward reasons. Another industry colleague mentioned that the action felt like SSX, and it's a fair description, but not the only one that curious gamers should hinge their opinions upon, although the process of accumulating points by holding tricks definitely brings that to mind. Also, players will pull-off tricks to gain boost as they move down the hill.